The Brits, and the American stooge fans who get mad if anyone doesn't try to regard soccer exactly as the Brits do, will find something to complain about any time a competition is held outside of England. FIFA's own rules require that a game be stopped if there's lightning within a 10-mile radius of the stadium. It's not like this is something unique to a competition in the United States. Certainly thunderstorms are more common here than they are in England, but they're not unique to this country.
If there were no thunderstorms, they'd then be whining that it wasn't raining enough and that the fields are dryer and firmer than they are in England such that a clean sliding tackle is more difficult to accomplish without skinning your legs. I'm surprised they haven't been complaining about the front row of seats in Atlanta being higher up above field level than in some other stadiums (this because Atlanta has some retractable seating to allow for a full-sized soccer field instead of playing on a narrower field the way you see in some NFL stadiums).
And if they'd scheduled the Club World Cup and next year's World Cup for a time of year other than summer, they'd nag and moan just like they did when the 2022 World Cup was held in November (though as a practical matter, a US World Cup will never be held at that time of year because the NFL and college football make that a non-starter).
I saw an article suggesting that part of the issue with bad attendance is an "oversaturation of soccer" this summer with the Gold Cup going on at the same time. I think poor scheduling is part of it as well. There was a game at Audi Field last Thursday at 3:00 PM between teams from Morocco and the UAE. Scheduling a game between two relatively unknown opponents during the afternoon on a weekday is dumb, especially in a workaholic city like DC. The stadium was half-full. The other game from that group, played simultaneously, was between Juventus and Manchester City. Quite understandable why they chose a larger venue for that one (the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, where they got around 55,000 people), and presumably those two teams being from Western Europe was the reason for the 3:00 PM game times (prime time TV over there).
